The finalists for this year’s Nova Scotia Book Awards and Atlantic Book Awards have been announced.

The winners of both sets of awards will be announced during the Atlantic Book Festival later this spring. The winners of the Nova Scotia Book Awards will be announced at an event in Dartmouth, N.S., on June 3, while the winners of the Atlantic Book Awards will be announced in Halifax on June 5.

The awards, which celebrate Atlantic and Nova Scotian writing and publishing, are collectively worth more than $55,000.

The Nova Scotia Book Award nominees are:

Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction

• Hold My Girl by Charlene Carr (HarperCollins)
• What Comes Echoing Back by Leo McKay Jr. (Vagrant Press)
• The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters (Harper Perennial/HarperCollins)

Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award

• Mommy Don’t by Sherri Aikenhead (Nimbus Publishing)
• Kings of Their Own Ocean: Tuna, Obsession, and the Future of our Seas by Karen Pinchin (Knopf Canada)
• Still, I Cannot Save You: A Memoir of Sisterhood, Love, and Letting Go by Kelly S. Thompson (McClelland & Stewart)

George Borden Writing for Change

• Alan Syliboy: Culture is our Medicine by Ray Cronin (Gaspereau Press)
• Gutsy: Living My Best Life with Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis by Heather Fegan (Nimbus Publishing)
• Making a Home: Assisted Living in the Community for Young Disabled People by Jen Powley (Roseway Publishing/Fernwood Publishing)

Margaret and John Savage First Book Award, Fiction

• The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters (Harper Perennial/HarperCollins)
• Roar by Shelley Thompson (Nimbus Publishing)
• Birth Road by Michelle Wambolt (Nimbus Publishing)

Margaret and John Savage First Book Award, Non-Fiction

• About Canada: Dental Care by Brandon Doucet (Fernwood Publishing)
• Gutsy: Living My Best Life with Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis by Heather Fegan (Nimbus Publishing)
• Kings of Their Own Ocean: Tuna, Obsession, and the Future of our Seas by Karen Pinchin (Knopf Canada)

The nominees for the Atlantic Book Awards are:

Ann Connor Brimer Award for Atlantic Canadian Children’s Literature

• The Journal of Anxious Izzy Parker by Alma Fullerton (Second Story Press)
• A Green Velvet Secret by Vicki Grant (Tundra Books)
• Kepmite’taqney Ktapekiaqn – Le chant d’honneur – The Honour Song by George Paul (Bouton d’Or Acadie)
• The Words We Share by Jack Wong (Annick Press)

APMA Best Atlantic-Published Book Award 

• Breakwater Books for Impressions of Newfoundland: The Art of Ting Ting Chen by Ting Ting Chen
• Goose Lane Editions for Mary Pratt: A Love Affair with Vision by Anne Koval
• Goose Lane Editions for No Ordinary Magic: The Art of Laurie Swim by Carol Bruneau
• Vagrant Press for Recipe for a Good Life by Lesley Crewe

J. M. Abraham Atlantic Poetry Award

• Indie Rock by Joe Bishop (University of Alberta Press)
• Optic Nerve by Matthew Hollett (Brick Books)
• Your Therapist Says It’s Magical Thinking by Sadie McCarney (ECW Press)
• Soft Inheritance by Fawn Parker (Palimpsest Press)
• Ultramarine by Harry Thurston (Gaspereau Press)

Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award

• This is the House Luke Built by Violet Browne (Goose Lane Editions)
• Hold My Girl by Charlene Carr (HarperCollins)
• The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters (Harper Perennial/HarperCollins)
• Hollow Bamboo by William Ping (HarperCollins)
• A Grandmother Begins the Story by Michelle Porter (Viking Canada)

This year, the Atlantic Book Awards and Festival has launched a reader’s choice award. The winner will be selected through two rounds of public voting. Readers can cast their votes online.